Any Sacramento Kings fans hoping that Vice President of Basketball Operations, Vlade Divac would ease their tension about the relationship between DeMarcus Cousins and George Karl got a severe reality check on Thursday.
Vlade on Cousins & Karl “not pretty right now . . . Hope it goes well ” expects both to be w/#Kings when season starts ” to @jimrome
— Bill Herenda (@billherenda) July 9, 2015
Vlade Divac admitted on The Jim Rome Show that head coach George Karl and star center DeMarcus Cousins’ relationship is anything but pretty. Divac said once he puts the final touches on upgrading the team’s roster through free agency, then he will turn his attention towards hopefully helping Karl and Cousins working out their differences for the betterment of the team.
“I will be honest with you, I think it’s not pretty right now,” Divac said of the two. “I’m focused on bringing a better team this year, and I think I did a pretty good job in this free agency, and now I will be focused on the two of them. I think they should think about how they can do the best for this team, and I hope everything goes well.”
Divac also still believes that he can build a championship team around his skilled 24-year old center, despite any doubters.
“I really believe in DeMarcus, I think he’s our franchise guy,” said Divac. “I came here after 10 years, I had a chance to win the championship here with the Sacramento Kings, it didn’t happen, I am coming back to do that with DeMarcus. A lot of rumors around the country talking about ‘he’s not going to play for coach’, ‘coach wants to trade him’; it’s not going to happen,” said Divac. “If somebody is going to make a decision, I’m going to make the decision. So I want to keep them both here for now. DeMarcus is definitely our guy that we want to build a team around.”
The Sacramento Kings’ affairs’ have been a contentious topic since reports came out last month that Karl was trying to persuade Divac and team owner Vivek Ranadive to trade Cousins. That wild week in Sacramento included Cousins seemingly referring to his coach as a snake in the grass in a now-infamous tweet. These weeks truly haven’t been kind to this franchise and those where the kind of statements that Divac needed to make to right this ship. There is hope though, from Sacramento fans in particular that everything will be okay sooner than later in King’s Landing.
